Magnifica Humanitas is much more than an encyclical about artificial intelligence (AI). In its extensive scope it addresses many other topics, although the document’s underlying humanist spirit is clearly evident in its subtitle, On the guardianship of human life in the age of artificial intelligence. The humanist character also saturates its reflections on geopolitics and international law, issues that Leo XIV has tackled in some of his previous interventions.
It does not lack references to The City of God, by Saint Augustine, a classic work of the philosophy of history. But this Augustinian pontiff does not turn it into a guide for governance. In fact, in his address to the diplomatic corps (January 10, 2026), he pointed out that “The City of God does not propose a political program. Instead, it offers valuable reflections on fundamental questions related to social and political life, such as the pursuit of a more just and peaceful coexistence among peoples.” Augustine also warns of the grave dangers to political life posed by false representations of history, excessive nationalism, and the distortion of the ideal of the political leader. The work was written in the early fifth century, a time in which Leo XIV finds contemporary parallels: “We find ourselves in an era of generalized migratory movements, in a time of profound realignment of geopolitical balances and cultural paradigms”.
The paragraph 185 of Magnifica Humanitas highlights a situation that many people, accustomed to decades-long international order based on rules, do not quite understand: the return of empires. We read: “If we observe global dynamics, we increasingly recognize the expansion of a culture of power, made up of polarizations and violences. The modern Babel is not only the paradigm of the global technocratic order, but also the distant confrontation between opposed imperialisms, between powers that want to preserve their primacy and powers that aspire to conquer it, with a multiplicity of local conflicts. It is, moreover, the race to develop ever more powerful technologies, or to secure their control, according to a dehumanizing dynamic that seems to know no bounds.” Needless to say, political ambitions, united with the obsession for control of technology, form an explosive combination. Yet these risks do not only proceed from old or new empires, for large tech companies compete with them and aspire to influence their actions. Today it seems to fulfill what the Italian-German philosopher Romano Guardini wrote in The End of the Modern Age (1950): “Modern man is not prepared to wield power wisely.” The pontiff quotes him in paragraph 93. By modern, one should understand anyone who has placed all his hopes in mere unlimited technical progress without limits or responsibilities.
“We live amid a crushing power dynamic, and leaders, in their obsession to preserve or acquire it, fuel polarization in society”
The reflection on power, which Leo XIV links at the start of the encyclical to the biblical story of the Tower of Babel, continues in paragraph 188: “In the times we live in, a culture of power is consolidating, in which the availability of means and the ability to dominate tend to dictate the agenda and the criteria of decision, relegating the common good of humanity to a secondary plane and reducing the concrete drama of peoples at war to a secondary variable relative to strategic interests. This culture of power penetrates society, changes relationships and behaviors, expands by normalizing war, pursuing an ever greater military power, taking advantage of the crisis of multilateralism and feeding a false realism, which repeats that there are no alternatives”. It should be added that the concept of the common good, not only for humanity but for the citizens of a given country, has been diluted in recent years. Some have substituted it with the general interest, others with the national, and some, boasting of being clever, with the private. We live amid a crushing dynamics of power, and leaders, in their obsession to preserve or acquire it, fuel polarization in society. They also claim to be realistic, for they only conceive a world of friends or enemies. This behavior is not only present in the upper echelons, but repeats at various scales in societies. It is thus understood that the common good is regarded as something belonging to idealists and utopians.
The will to power finds a fertile ground in war and the use of force, where AI plays a prominent role. This appears in paragraph 183: “The digital revolution is changing the grammar of conflicts. To visible warfare, there are hybrid forms: cyberattacks, manipulation of information, influence campaigns, and the automation of strategic decisions. AI enters these processes as an acceleration factor, in a context where many technologies are intrinsically ambivalent: what is born to protect can quickly become an attack, and the boundary between protection and aggression tends to blur. AI can strengthen defense and the protection of civilians, but it can also lower the threshold for the use of force, make responsibility opaque, and fuel a culture in which the enemy is reduced to a datum and the victim to a ‘collateral damage’.” It should be added that it is not usually thought that in current conflicts the combatant has been stripped of the possibility of surrender. It will not matter if they raise their hands or not. They have been reduced to collateral damage, and the same has been happening for years with the crisis of international humanitarian law, as the concept of “legitimate target” has been broadened and attacks on energy and communications infrastructures or on densely populated areas have been justified with the euphemism of the “enemy operating environment.” This is how attacks on hospitals and humanitarian aid convoys are understood. They have been practiced not only by military powers, but also by those armed groups that live permanently in a scenario of wars without battles.
“The crisis of multilateralism and of a law of international cooperation has favored the return of empires”
The crisis of multilateralism and of a law based on cooperation has favored the return of empires. Some consequences can be read in paragraph 203: “In this context, peacebuilding has taken a back seat: development cooperation, disarmament, conflict prevention and the promotion of mutual trust are relegated, in the name of power logics. Thus the achievements of humanitarian law are also weakened: the principle of proportionality in response to aggression, the protection of access to water, food, and essential goods, and respect for the life of civilians and children are treated as naive remnants of the past”.
Magnifica Humanitas is a document that defends authentic peace, one inseparable from justice, and at the same time is a timely reflection on the dignity of the human being.
